Here Are Some People Who Received Longer Sentences than Manafort for Much Lighter Crimes

Having watched Paul Manafort get sentenced to the equivalent length of your average college education on Thursday, various lawyers observers took to Twitter to point out that the American justice system has a bit of a problem with equality. To wit, here are a whole bunch of cases for people who got a lot more time than Manafort for crimes that were all in all significantly more minor:

While Paul Manafort just received a less than 4 year prison sentence for massive financial fraud, I have a client serving 3 and a half to 7 years in prison for stealing laundry detergent from a drug store. pic.twitter.com/I38uq9WkXK

Here’s story of Crystal Mason, who got 5 years for illegally voting even though she didn’t realize she was ineligible to vote. Paul Manafort got less time for betraying his country https://t.co/X9ZHHbshQC

The point of this is not necessarily to say that Paul Manafort deserves more time. It is to point out that there are some serious disparities in the American criminal justice system, and they fall exceptionally hard on people with racial and class disadvantages. The relatively light sentence tossed at Manafort, a wealthy white man, after prosecutors had recommended he get somewhere between 19 and 24 years, is yet one more time when those disparities are cast in a very stark light.